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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

A Day Off From Yelling.

I woke up this morning and I decided I won't yell at my kids today. Seems easy enough, right?

Wrong. You see, although my husband may disagree with you, I tend to be a fairly patient person. I'm extremely patient when it comes to other peoples' children and only slightly less patient when it comes to my own but I'm allowed to feel this way since I grew them, endured the awkward and uncomfortably long ten month gestation period with them and had them cut from me using frighteningly sharp objects. Twice, mind you.

I try not to yell often but I yell because I can often predict what is about to happen. I yell so as to avoid the prediction from becoming real life. Take for instance, example A:

Carter has an affinity for filling the dog's water bowl each day. He likes to think he's completing his "chores" and I like to think he's doing one less thing that I would have to do that day and so it's a win-win. Sometimes Sheepie doesn't feel like drinking the water right away and Carter considers this a personal affront. He is so offended that he often feels the need to carry the water bowl around the house after the dog, commanding him to "Drink, Sheepie!"

I'm sure you can see where this is going. Time and again I tell Carter that he can't carry the full bowl of water around the house. In my patient mom-voice I explain how it's too heavy and too full and it will spill and then it will be a mess and someone could slip and break an arm and then we have to go to the hospital where it's not a scary place but it's not somewhere we want to be on a Tuesday morning before Kelly & Michael. You know, all of that cause and effect nonsense that I'm supposed to impart on them.

In all of his independent three-year old glory, he practically flips me off as he continues to carry the bowl around the house. Lo and behold, what happens but on the third pass around the kitchen the water bowl tips, slips and falls to the floor spilling half of a Brita pitcher's worth of water all over the place.

I ball my fists. I take deeps breaths. But I just finished cleaning the kitchen and I'm exhausted. And I politely asked Carter not to do this very thing 57 times.

And so it happens. I raise my voice and yell, "I TOLD YOU SO!" as if that's really going to prove something. As if that's really going to make the water clean itself up.

But that's not the only time I yell. I yell when the boys are chasing each other around the house. I yell after timeouts have been wasted and polite reprimands fall on deaf little ears. I yell when the toddler throws the carefully folded laundry out of the basket onto the bedroom floor. I yell when he feeds his lunch to the dog and when the baby is perched precariously on a toy because he saw his brother climb the same way just minutes ago.

Most of the time I yell because I don't know what else to do and sometimes it just makes me feel better. I need to yell less.

So today? Today I'm not going to yell. I'm going to ball my fists and take deep breaths and even let myself out onto the deck if I need to but no matter what happens, I will not yell.

24 comments
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Perhaps you should keep a bottle of wine in the garage for your "time outs"! :) I'll be curious to see how much is gone by the time husband comes home. I don't yell at the baby (yet) but my poor dogs get swooshed, yelled at and locked outside when they wont get OUT FROM UNDER MY FEET! They always come back with wagging tails - I am sure the kids do too:)

I was never a yeller, until I had kids. Somehow it seems natural that a louder voice will be heard by them. The fact of the matter is that they don't listen to gentle voices or yelling. :) It's something I am working on myself. Want to know what helps? Open your windows. You'll be too embarrassed that the neighbors will hear you.

I have always been a yeller. I come from a long line of yellers. I yell and get it out and feel better. I listen to my kids sometimes and am like "Wow now I created yellers."

Like Molly said above about opening your windows. I always apologize to my sweet neighbor next door if she hears me yelling and she told me, "I raised 3 boys. Do you think I never yelled at them? Do what you have to do."

I made this same commitment a few months ago. And I have to say that I'm proud of myself for doing well with it. I still yell sometimes (it seems impossible not to) but overall, I try hard to calm myself down before exploding on the kids. And I feel like a much better mommy because of it. Good job, mama!

Maybe I should take a cue from you. I TRY SO HARD to be patient and not yell, but when the kid yells at me and whines "mommmmmmy!!!" over and over, after about 30 minutes, I usually lose it and yell "will you please stop yelling?"

and after typing that, I realize that maybe I'm yelling so I can hear myself over my son.

Being a SAHM is the hardest job you'll ever love. Each and everyday I wish I was better at it, but I can also look back and realize I'm doing a pretty good job. I have to happy kids, sometimes I yell, but those are only brief moments and they know they are loved. Try not to beat yourself up over a moment or two out of the 12-14 waking hours we send with these kiddos each day. My daughter has been ill, and it changes my perspective but I still yell, we are only human, trying to raise little people.

I'm a yeller. Not a screamer, but a yeller. Every day I wake up saying, "today is the day I'm going to stop yelling". I try the whole rational thing, but by 10am my patience runs out. Have you heard of The Orange Rhino? http://theorangerhino.com/about-the-orange-rhino/ I keep saying I'm going to join the challenge, but I don't know how realistic it is :) One day...

I am so glad to read this! My husband would be like yours and disagree about me being patient. But I have yet to smack down a person in public for things that I will smack him down for at home. I guess I yell because it seems to get my point across better (IMO). I've tried to do that less since being pregnant so when baby girl is born she won't be all 'Oh, THAT'S the crazy lady I've had to listen to for 9 months'. We all lose our cool at times and I can't imagine how much my patience will be tested when I will have a miniature person on my hands. Thank you for letting me know I'm going to be normal! ;)

Word. Add this to the pile of crappy motherhood stuff. It's SO difficult to hold back. Ugh and the guilt after you yell at them makes it even worse. Maybe I should get on the ground and do some crunches...in the end no yelling & I could be closer to getting rid of the 'mom pouch'.

Word. Add this to the huge list of crappy motherhood moments. Not yelling at a toddler hell bent on defying everything you tell them is friggin' hard. Maybe next time I will get down and do some crunches instead....end result = no yelling and I would be closer to getting rid of the "mom pouch"...

I have zero patience. ZERO. But E is slowly teaching me to chill the freak out. I'm still a little too quick to yell, but I'm learning just to walk away for a quick second. So now I do a lot of walking away ;) win some lose some!

How did the day go? I find myself yelling more and more these days now that I'm home with the boys during the summer. One can only tell a little human being so many times to stop touching, biting, hitting, and start sharing before losing their cool. The worse is when I yell at them to stop yelling...yeah, because that's really effective. Lately I have been putting myself in a time out. They tend to not like this at all. Before kids I considered myself a very patient person, but now not so much.

longtime reader -- new commenter. this post has so resonated with me. i have found myself yelling more and more at my kids, particularly my 3 year old boy. no fighting, no hitting, no headbutting sister in the stomach, no pulling the dog's tail, no jumping on your bed, no knocking over sister's barbie princess castle, yada yada yada. a never-ending cycle of yelling. and i felt awful about it. i didn't feel like me. and i decided to try not to yell. and then i read this post. now we've been start each day saying we are all not going to yell today. and i think we're all a lot happier. :)

HA I totally get you!!!! I used to be a yeller too! Until one day in bible class an old lady looked into my eyes and said you don't want your children to remember you as a yeller right dear ??? I was oh my word, she was right ;) it's hard but you can do it!!!!XOXO

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